Having worked around financial crimes for a number of years, I noticed they seemed to be on the rise.
One reason for this is technology, which grows more rapidly than laws designed to protect us from it.
Although the blog is a resource to educate people on identity theft, it also strives to educate the common person on the rapidly growing problem of crimes enabled (made too easy) by technology and the Internet.

On Monday, David Lazarus of the San Francisco Chronicle reported Office Max as being the point of compromise. The Chronicle and David Lazarus have been instrumental in breaking this story despite all the "no comments" from the financial industry.

The saga continues and Channel 5 of the San Francisco Bay area is now reporting:

"As OfficeMax denies that its computer systems were hacked and that customers' financial information was stolen, investigators are looking into the possibility that the same kinds of cyber thieves may have struck again at Sam's Club."

"But the FBI confirms it is investigating the possible theft of OfficeMax customer data that led to several major banks canceling thousands of debit cards."

On a even more ominous note, Channel 5 reported:

"The FBI fears the stolen money is going to international organized crime rings, or even funding terrorist organizations."

California State Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough has already expressed concern that California's strict disclosure laws might have been violated AND now the Financial Times is reporting:

"Barney Frank, the senior Democrat on the house financial services committee, said on Wednesday he would consider legislation to require credit card companies to name the party responsible for consumer data breaches."

It's been established and reported that Visa and Mastercard admitted to knowing that the breach occurred at a retailer, but wouldn't identify which one. This lead to a lot of speculation in the press that Sam's Club (another recent breach) was the source.

Of course, based on my personal experience, I know I have never bought anything at Sam's Club.

The most recent reports are saying that the FBI is investigating to see if a tie between the two cases exist. This makes more sense to me. When I was following this story, I noticed that the recent breach seemed to be Northern California specific, while the Sam's Club case has proven to cover different geographic areas.

This isn't to say that there isn't a tie. With all the data breaches in the past couple of years, it seems to me that highly organized gangs are maliciously attacking corporations to steal information.

It's going to be interesting to see how the legal part of this comes out.

Here is a pretty good explanation of California laws by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse:

In addition to this, there is also been a civil law suit filed for the California victims of the Cardsystems (Mastercard) breach. The lawsuit alleges that consumers were not notified in a timely manner.

Other notable "data breaches" in the recent past have been the Boston Globe, Choice Point, Wachovia Corporation, Bank of America, Time Warner and even educational institutions, such as Boston College and the University of California, Berkeley.

Office Max has the right to deny they are the source, but unless Channel 5 is mistaken, the FBI is on the case and they are looking at them.

I'm sure no one at these corporations, or institutions wished for the breach to occur. The question is, whether or not, keeping everything secret serves the public interest. When this story broke, it was because Bank of America got in front of it and addressed it. As a result, they probably took the initial heat, but as history is written, it might show they did the right thing. It's now very obvious that they were not the only financial institution, or retailer that had reason to suspect their customers might be in harm's way.